Wherein the Customer Isn’t Served

I was craving ice cream and an ice cold drink to stave off the sweltering temperatures of the blistering atmosphere. Immediately, I headed for the nearest Maverick, knowing how much I love their frozen yogurt – yummy AND cheap! Great combination.

Charging into the store, focused solely on getting to that frozen yogurt machine prior to turning to a puddle of goo myself and praying fiercely that the machine would be in working order, I found the glorious, metallic, shining robot of frigidness waiting just for me.

Ahhhhhh! Relief!

I grabbed a paper-wrapped cake cone and gingerly held it beneath the spout that would release the chocolate-vanilla twisted deliciousness. I held my breath as I pulled the lever and out spurted… brownish water. It wasn’t cold enough at first, so the cup of my cone filled up with the brown semi-gelatinous liquid that got progressively thicker and closer to the consistency of frozen yogurt.

Once I had produced the standard curly-q atop my swirly mountain of finally-frozen yogurt, I pushed the lever to “off” and stepped back, ready to greedily consume the creamy iciness. As I brought it to my lips, the mountain top started sliding precariously toward the edge of the cone, so I tilted it the other direction in a dance of balance and precision.

Rocking the cone back and forth to keep the quickly melting product as upright as possible, I approached the counter and asked the older gentleman at the register, “Sir, is there somewhere that I can drop this semi-frozen yogurt so that I can fill my cone with completely frozen yogurt?”

He exited around the counter and came to my rescue, guiding me back to the silvery machine and handing me a cup. Now one of my favorite things about Maverick’s frozen yogurt is that it is $1 – for any size of mountainous yogurt that you can heap on a cone. For a small cup of it, it is about $1.67 for however much you can load in the cup. His solution was to kindly hand me a spoon and a cup into which he tipped my quickly liquifying “frozen” yogurt.

It wasn’t the solution that I was looking for, but it seemed to be ok for this smiling gentleman who appeared to be believing that he had solved all the world’s problems by handing me this empty cup. I returned to the register with the gentleman who was still smiling and readying himself to help me check out with the biggest smile I’ve seen on a cashier in a very long time. The young woman behind the counter, however, was scowling as we approached.

She piped up, speaking over the shoulder of the customer in front of her, “No! “You can’t do that!”

The gentleman and I both stopped and stared at her, as did the customer who was holding out money, waiting to pay for her products.

“You can’t,” she repeated, “do that. It breaks the rules. Even though he’s trying to be helpful, he can’t do that. You’re going to have to pay for a cup and a cone.”

I thought for a moment about what I wanted to do next. Taking the cup of now watery “frozen” yogurt that was oozing over the lip of the container, I placed it gently on her countertop and smiled at her.

“Okay, fine. Then you can take this watery yogurt and the little cup and figure out a better solution because I’m not paying for a soggy cone and a cup of brown water.”

I smiled at the kind gentleman, paid for my icy frapuccino-in-a-bottle and walked out as the puddle of stickiness oozed across the young lady’s countertop in front of the woman who still held her money, waiting for the checker to finish the transaction.

And, in the end, I had no ice cream and the store lost inventory and money. Brilliant!